Nu Vibez and Roleplay Guide Magazine - June 2015 | Page 69

many people probably have more
trouble than they will admit or realize.” On the opposite side, one
respondant said to me: “That’s a
stupid Question. Gacha no more
causes addiction than beer CAUSES alcoholism.”
Some players confirm that they
would like to have help with this
gacha addiction problem. “Yes.
I know people that have gone
into thousands and thousands of
credit card debt due to their gacha addiction.” Another person
asked, “Is there some support
for gambling, because thats basically what it is when you play a
machine. You’re gambling that
you will get the item or items you
want.” And yet another shared,
“There are resources outside of
SL for gambling addiction - these
should be used too. But it might
help to have resources in SL too.”

I wonder, are there
any addiction specialists or psychologists in
Second Life who might
like to help those who
want it?

Most of the people say they
have no problem skipping a
gacha event when asked, stating “I go to every event. It’s a machine that I will choose to play or
not based on its merit. If I have
no interest in the products, then I
do not bother.” Another person
said: “Most of the time I like to go
to yardsales to find gacha stuff,
because on a machine it’s too easy
to lose track of what you spent or
to spend too much trying to get
a rare.” One person who can’t
avoid gacha events said: “Currently...no [problem skipping]. But
I know I have mental health issues

currently and gacha creates the
false sense of achievement I currently need.” From this, we can see
it’s not a pleasure for everyone to
play gacha.

What about the designers who fill those ohso-tempting Gacha Machines? What is their
opinion about gacha?

“That’s a stupid
Question. Gacha no
more causes addiction than beer CAUSES alcoholism.”

Here are the answers to our second blind survey.

I’ve done gachas that don’t do as
well as my regular releases).”

Is gacha consuming a lot of
time you otherwise would use
to work on new items for your
mainstore?

One designer said that its really worth it to make gacha items
and that it gives him/her more
money than a regular release in
his/her mainstore.

“Events in general are removing a
lot of time on work for new items
in my mainstore. In fact, I don’t do
much in terms of mainstore releases because customers prefer to shop
events.”
Another designer said: “No, not a
problem. I have very few gachas a
year.”
Is making gacha items worth
it for you? Does it bring you
more or less money than regular sales from your store?
“It depends on what I make and
where I release it. But personally, I
don’t feel like it is worth my time because it ends up being very stressful
and time consuming in general.
Sometimes I’ll make more than a
regular release, sometimes I will not.
Even if it makes more than a regular
release, in terms of time in vs. pay
out, it probably is about the same.
Instead of one gacha, I could do 2-3
releases and make whatever I made
on the gacha (provided it is popular,

Another designer said: “Not sure,
we are still figuring that out - but it
does take a lot of our time to make
one gacha set. [...] As a designer
- I’m still not sure if we will be doing gachas often - it takes much
much more of our time than regular items and we are yet not sure if
that is worth it.”
Does gacha help you to have
your store known by more
customers?
“I don’t know, possibly. I don’t think
it’s key, unless you’re in something
like The Arcade.“
Please share your opinion
about gacha with our readers.
“I think the gachas have flooded
the grid with stuff. Stuff that can’t
really be re-sold anymore. If I make
a hard gacha, which I’m sure most
people do (multiple rares, lots of
commons, sets of different things),
it will take me a huge amount of

NU VIBEZ & ROLEPLAY GUIDE MAGAZINE 69